The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

[quote="guest"]No joke man, my 4.0 is really all I have going for me though, so I'll cross my fingers and hope they need some EE's somewhere. Does anyone know exactly what kind of work that the intern jobs entail? Most of the undergrads won't have any design experience, so what would they do during the internships? I guess they aren't assuming interns would know very much and will give them adequate training?[/quote]


I have a 4.0 and 26 on the act and applied last year with EE as my chosen major. I made it to the semi-finalist round, got interviewed by a facility, and then interviewed by the SPO and in the end did not receive a scholarship.
I basically blame it on budget, I was applying for a 3 year scholarship and they usually only give out 1-2 year.

Intern work...
The facility that interviewed me stated that they use the internship as a training course. They dont just give you some lowbie job and just make you work all summer. The guy that interviewed me said that the take their interns and assign a mentor to them, kind of like a project manager to show you the ropes. He said that the interns shadow them and learn about the facility and its operations. They have no clue on what you will be working on after you graduate.


Advice..
The best advice I can give is put a lot of effort into your essay, the one you will write about why you want to work for the DoD and how the DoD will benefit from giving you this scholarship. I would get an English Composition teacher to help you with it.

No joke man, my 4.0 is really all I have going for me though, so I'll cross my fingers and hope they need some EE's somewhere. Does anyone know exactly what kind of work that the intern jobs entail? Most of the undergrads won't have any design experience, so what would they do during the internships? I guess they aren't assuming interns would know very much and will give them adequate training?

Don't forget during you're internship during the summer you'll get an additional $1200 a week, yes a week, on top of the $25,000/yr. Ridiculously good deal? HELL YA!!! lol.

Yeah, not too concerned about a remote facility. If I got through 12 years of the public school system, I can handle another two in a random base. Not bothered by about "potentially facilitating the deaths of this countries enemies."
I'd rather be "owned" by the DoD for two years than be "owned" by the several years of debt that I'll have with loans.

If recipients seriously get $25000/year, I can EASILY live off of $12500 (if not less) which would leave me half of that to pay off previous loans. And if they pay tuition, thats another 8-10 thousand. This just seems like an absolutely ridiculously good deal. I'll be applying for this for sure.

You're missing an e....... well only technically lol, basically it's just a spectacular scholarship not to mention opportunity to build experience. Only problem that some people have is that you're basically "owned" for the contractual time you owe, and you could end up working in some remote facility. Oh and you are working for the DoD, so depending on how you feel about potentially facilitating the deaths of this countries enemies.

So...
I'm actually interested in working for the DoD.
I am a 4.0 EE undergrad at calpoly.

From what I understand if one receives this scholarship, he/she
a. has his/her full tuition paid
b. receives $25000 per year
c. receives a paid? internship and job after graduation with pay appreciable to a typical job in the field?
d. displaces (at least) on year working for every year aid received

Am I missing something here or is this just a great scholarship?